Jon Speelman's Agony Column #44

3/11/2017 – This week's games are by Andrew Sainsbury who is in his early thirties and lives in Bolton in Greater Manchester. Aside from chess, he enjoys playing the guitar, practicing Kung Fu, and learning languages. One of the games he sent is a Modern Defense that transposes to an Accelerated Dragon, and brings very detailed analysis by Jon Speelman.

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Jon Speelman's Agony Column #44

He writes: “I am 32. I have a maths background and am a chartered accountant by training but now work in pricing analytics for a company which makes tools and consumables for the construction industry. Outside of chess, I enjoy playing the guitar, practising kung fu (nam pai chuan) and learning languages. I live in Bolton with my lovely wife Nicole - we've been married 18 months.

A little about my chess - I started playing chess when I was 16 at school in Lancaster - I went to the same school as James and Craig Hanley (Lancaster Royal Grammar School) - they were much better than everyone!

In terms of my chess development, I have hovered around the 160 mark (JS: 1880 ELO) for the last 8 years but now slowly nudging towards the 170 mark (1960)! I study a lot and seem to be making slow progress but feel I have had a bit of an epiphany recently. I am spending much more time on endings and really concentrating on the middle-game which is helping my chess enormously.

I play chess for Chorlton Chess Club in Manchester and have played for them since 2008. It's a friendly club and quite well known in the area for being a classic old, cold venue. We share the venue with the church social club on their bingo night so it's quite funny that you can be walking downstairs after your game to be greeted by some of the old ladies who have just got a full house after the Irish priest who does the bingo calling has just announced "two little ducks, 22!" it's certainly different!It's got its charm though and is a very welcoming club with lots of the senior players investing a lot of their time training the up and coming players.

I am a trained ECF arbiter and will be supporting at the Blackpool congress this year.”

Andrew also mentioned that he has a website aimed mainly at players who are starting out: The Quiet Move. The two games he sent me are a nice positional win in which he completely outplayed his opponent in a Advance French and a tough loss in a Modern Defence which transposed into an Accelerated Dragon. We start with the latter.

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Jonathan SpeelmanJonathan Speelman, born in 1956, studied mathematics but became a professional chess player in 1977. He was a member of the English Olympic team from 1980–2006 and three times British Champion. He played twice in Candidates Tournaments, reaching the semi-final in 1989. He twice seconded a World Championship challenger: Nigel Short and then Viswanathan Anand against Garry Kasparov in London 1993 and New York 1995.

See also

9/17/2017 – This week's games are by Andreas Niedersberger, pictured playing chess against his very beautiful cat, which apparently has a predilection for the Rubinstein French. Andreas gave up chess — a childhood hobby — at age fourteen, and only when his own children had grown up a bit did he return to the game. His two games feature a Tarrasch (or Semi-Tarrasch) and an open Sicilian.

See also

9/3/2017 – Rudy van Kemenade featured in Agony #1 sixteen months ago and this week becomes our first repeat. After a veritable tsunami of submissions when this column first appeared the water level has now fallen, so that our Grandmaster Agony columnist's lead time is quite short. Please send in your games if you'd like them to appear, and you are more than welcome to send games even if you've already done so before. | Photo: Dyfed Chess Association Publicity Gallery

Video

The setup for White recommended by Valeri Lilov is solid and easy to play – the thematic moves are almost always the same ones: Nge2, 0-0, Bg5 (or Be3), Nd5, Qd2. Later, according to Black’s setup, things continue with f4 or even Rac1, b4 and play on the queenside. Starting with the classic Botvinnik-Spassky, Leiden 1970, the author describes this universally employable setup in 7 videos (+ intro and conclusion).

Enjoy the best moments of recent top tournaments (World Cup, Isle of Man Open) with analysis of top players. In addition you'll get lots of training material. For example 10 new suggestions for your opening repertoire.